Toronto-based Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. has announced the launch of the Horizons Inovestor Canadian Equity Index ETF, which offers low-cost exposure to the Nasdaq Inovestor Canada index (NICI).

Units of the ETF began trading Tuesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol INOC.

INOC has a Canadian-focused equity mandate of holding high-quality Canadian stocks and seeking to replicate the performance of the NICI, which was jointly designed by Montreal-based software company Inovestor Inc. and Nasdaq.

The index consists of 25 equal-weighted large-capitalization, Canadian-listed companies, which are high-quality firms that trade at a reasonable price with the best rankings in Inovestor’s StockPointer stock selection model.

« As Canadian equities continue to rise, investors are increasingly looking for new ways to search for quality issuers at reasonable prices, » says Steve Hawkins, president and co-CEO of Horizons ETFs, in a statement. « INOC harnesses the stock selection power of Inovestor’s StockPointer, which has been one of Canada’s largest stock selection software services for financial advisors during the past two decades. »

« Having spent decades perfecting our technique of selecting and ranking equities within our software for advisors and firms, we are excited to be relaying our expertise in investment metrics within an ETF that our clients and the broader public can invest, » adds Pascal Lefrancois, president and CEO of Inovestor. « Many investors have struggled to determine the true value of various Canadian securities, and we believe our investment process helps choose quality stocks at a reasonable price. »